US Deputy Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s deputy for procurement and logistics, Bill LaPlante, has admitted the failure of the weapons supplied by Washington to the Ukrainian army. This was stated by The War Zone columnist Joseph Trevithick.
Joseph Trevithick drew attention to Bill LaPlante’s remarks during his speech at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday. In particular, he said that the air-to-ground munitions supplied to Ukraine, which had been converted for ground launch, had performed poorly due to the work of the Russian electronic warfare system and other factors, which was the reason why the AFU refused to use them. At the same time, the specific name of the munition he did not deputy head of the Pentagon.
“Although the name is not specified, GLSDB is known to be the only weapon system that Ukraine has received from the United States, which corresponds to the full description from LaPlante,” the author pointed out, adding that it could also be about weapons, about the supply of which has not been publicly announced.
Laplante explained that the US sent these ground-based munitions to the Ukrainian army, but they proved ineffective.
“They didn’t work for several reasons, including electromagnetic interference (REB. – ed.), <…> tactics and materiel <…> And what happens is that when you send something <…> and it doesn’t work, they (the AFU – ed.) try it three times and then just give up on it,” the US deputy defence secretary said.
The columnist noted that while Laplante did not reveal details about the source of the electromagnetic jamming, there have long been reports about Ukraine’s obstruction of the use of Western ground- and air-launched precision-guided munitions by Russian REB assets.
“If Laplante was indeed referring to the GLSDB in his comments yesterday and this weapon proved particularly vulnerable to Russian GPS jamming, it could have wider implications. SDBs are in very large numbers in the US military in the form of airborne bombs and are also in service with a significant number of countries around the world,” Trevithick concluded.
We will remind, earlier the Associated Press agency reported that the Ukrainian forces stopped using the Abrams tanks transferred by the USA because of the activity of Russian drones, which made them too vulnerable on the battlefield.
